Opponents Give Pause to Plans for Resort : Rancho Palos Verdes: The council delays its final approval of a luxury hotel after a law firm representing environmentalists claims the project is illegal.

Environmentalists have thrown a monkey wrench into a developer’s plan to build a large resort hotel complex on the Rancho Palos Verdes coastline.

City Council members, who were to consider final approval Tuesday on the luxury hotel at Long Point, postponed the matter for two weeks when opponents, whose arguments against the project have largely been ignored, turned to their lawyers to get the council’s attention.

The head-turner was a legal opinion from a high-powered San Francisco environmental law firm, which is representing the Palos Verdes Peninsula citizens group, Save Our Coastline 2000.

“It is one thing to have (Save Our Coastline chairman) Gar Goodson say the hotel is inconsistent with the General Plan, but it is something else to have a 10-page, single-spaced letter that cites a lot of case law and stuff,” Mayor Douglas M. Hinchliffe said in an interview Wednesday.

In their lengthy letter to council members, the lawyers contended it would be illegal for the city to approve the hotel project because the city’s General Plan, or the document that guides development citywide, fails to clearly state how the land can be developed and appears to prohibit a resort complex.

Shortly after Marineland closed four years ago and Arizona-based developer James Monaghan purchased the prime oceanfront property, council members unanimously voted to support the construction of a hotel on the site. The project has been wending its way through city channels ever since, dogged every step of the way by opponents, including Save Our Coastline.

In April, the Planning Commission approved a 450-room hotel, a golf course and a recreation and conference center for the bluff overlooking the Pacific Ocean. In May, Save Our Coastline appealed that decision to the City Council.

Proponents say the hotel is the best way to improve the city’s largely residential tax base without targeting homeowners. Opponents say it would mar the natural beauty of one of the last largely undeveloped areas in Los Angeles and Orange counties.

Although there has been much debate in recent months among city officials over just how large a hotel should be allowed on the land, until Tuesday no city official gave credence to arguments that such a project might violate local planning laws. City planners have maintained that since the land is zoned for recreational and commercial projects, a hotel is a permitted use.

But Save Our Coastline 2000 members, led by Goodson, have argued otherwise, and recently retained the San Francisco law firm of Shute, Mihaly and Weinberger to represent them. The firm specializes in environmental and land use law, and counts among its clients the Sierra Club, Friends of the Earth and the Environmental Defense Fund.

According to partner Mark Weinberger, Rancho Palos Verdes’ General Plan fails to adequately analyze and predict the traffic and other impacts a large resort complex would cause. General plans, which are required by state law, must be specific enough to serve as an informed guide for all future development, he said in an interview Wednesday.

“The point is the General Plan doesn’t contain the necessary policies or the analysis to support a major new facility,” he said.

On Tuesday night, Save Our Coastline members, as well as supporters of the hotel project, crowded into council chambers. Some supporters sported buttons reading “Make Long Point Happen,” while Save Our Coastline members pinned a baby sock (to mimic the shape of the coastline) to their lapels.

Monaghan representatives urged council members to deny Save Our Coastline’s appeal, arguing that the project approved by the Planning Commission was the outcome of numerous public hearings involving city officials, residents and the Monaghan Co.

“We have complied with every land-use issue we were aware of,” Monaghan partner Robert Spence testified.

Goodson told council members that Save Our Coastline 2000, which has about 190 members, is not anti-development and has no desire to file a lawsuit against the city or Monaghan to kill the hotel project.

Rather, he said, the group is for “safe, sane and very measured development in accord with the General Plan.

”. . . I have read and studied the plans of your city from cover to cover . . . and it finally became clear to me that it would be easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for the Rancho Palos Verdes City Council to lawfully approve a giant hotel on the coastline.”

Hinchliffe characterized the council’s decision to postpone a vote on the issue “a delay I think is born out of caution more than anything else.”

The additional time will give City Atty. Carol Lynch time to study the environmentalists’ arguments. The council wants to be sure that a successful legal challenge to the Monaghan project will not invalidate the General Plan and, with it, development throughout the city, Hinchliffe said.

“I think all of us felt an uneasy, uncomfortable sense,” he said. “We could have taken a treacherous step.”

Hinchliffe predicted that no matter how the council eventually votes on the hotel project, the city will wind up in court, either defending itself against a lawsuit filed by Save Our Coastline or Monaghan.

How the General Plan Reads

It is the goal of the City of Rancho Palos Verdes to preserve and enhance the community’s quality living environment; to enhance the visual character and physical quality of existing neighborhoods; and to encourage the development of housing in a manner which adequately serves the needs of all present and future residents of the community.

The city shall discourage industrial and major commercial activities due to the terrain and environmental characteristics of the city. Commercial development shall be carefully and strictly controlled and limited to consideration of convenience or neighborhood service facilities.

The city shall encourage the development of institutional facilities to serve the political, social and cultural needs of its citizens.

The city shall endeavor to provide, develop and maintain recreational facilities and programs of various types to provide a variety of activities for persons of all age groups and in all areas of the community.

Agricultural uses within the city shall be encouraged, since they are desirable for resource management and open space.